onswifterwings

[onswifterwings]

I am back, after taking care of some personal matters and the continued tagging of the amazing @man--eater I have at least a little snippet to share for WIP Wednesday! It's not much, but I'm very glad to be back in the groove.

Herald has been dipped in angelic steel, cast out, and rescued by Carmilla Carmine. But will he be grateful? We shall have to see.

I awoke, reeling “Lyre!!!” and promptly got sick all over my front. I went to wipe the mess from my chest and found hard metallic fingers filed to a sharpened point. I raised my other hand to find the same. I lurched from the gurney I had been placed on, shoving serving trays on wheels and what I would later learn were Intravenous Bags full of medicine to rehydrate me. I needed to SEE myself. At some point I found a mirror, I saw my silhouette. It did not look right. I gingerly stepped into a bathroom, my recovery room supplying the only light behind me. I turned and spied the light switch for the dim room I found myself in. I extended a tentative arm still seeing the misshapen appendage that was not my own. I flicked the switch and my world burst into harsh light. I raised my gaze and looked into the mirror. My arms…my face…and part of my chest were all coated in metallic sheen….and flecked with blood. My once round face still held its same dimensions but was angular and harsh. My arms were completely coated in metallic armor, but the once round tips of my fingers were sharp and pointed. The armor shielding ran up my arms and extended beyond my elbow ending in a hideously sharp blade protruding from both joints. My face. My face was impossibly smooth, no nose, no ears. Only holes left for my nostrils, ears, and mouth. The angelic steel continued above my brow extending to a veritable crown of spikes, covering all my hair (Did I even have hair anymore?). What had been done to me?

 “You are awake.” I hurriedly turned to look upon my new visitor. She was an impossibly thin woman. Long, languid and strong looking arms tipped with matte black nail polish. Her biceps were small, but her forearms looked like they could crush small rocks in her very grip. Two impossibly long braids snaked up from her scalp ending in harsh points, encased in fishnet wrapping. “What’s happened?” I croaked. “What have you done to-” I tried to lean on a surface that was not there. I collapsed to the ground unable to lift my newly heavy appendages. I laid there for a few moments. Attendants rushed in to help me to my feet. Before I lost consciousness I gleaned one last look at my visitor as I was hoisted upward. She looked almost like the sternest of Exorcists I had come across. But her eyes, they burned fiery red in their sclera, while housing a brilliant silvery iris. Her look conveyed sympathy, but expectancy as well, like I owed her something. I was unsure if I could repay the cost she clearly expected of me. 

[onswifterwings]

The incomparable @man--eater tagged me once again in WIP Wednesday! I missed last week because I was melting alive in the summer heat!

Some continuation of Herald's introduction to "Lord Adam", his relationship with his wife, and the sowing doubts in his mind.

I smiled, bemusedly. It was always best to flatter Lord Adam when he was around. Lyre’s proximity to Adam meant I had to feign adoration or at the very least pleasantness, around the elite of the Exorcist Organization. Lord Adam was the most Elite. He came strutting down the aisle in my corner of the Foundry. “Hope you can make a skull splitter out of a stratocaster!” Adam exclaimed, wiping his hands and tossing a half consumed snack tray into a simmering forge. The fruit and crackers burned, and a rank but brief odor was released into the air. I thought the sensory experience was not entirely unlike Lord Adam as a being. A Flash. A Bang. And a feeling of annoyance once it passed. 

He sucked the juice off his fingers and began wandering around my shop. He was constantly babbling. Lord Adam had the cadence and rhythm  of a twittering ferret, with the mouth and demeanor of the most bullish schoolboy or town drunk. “So basically I wanna be able to cleave a dude’s dome in half, while also playing the solo to Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’! You get what I’m sayin’?” I couldn’t begin to fathom what he was saying. Wait. Was he talking about that group from Birmingham that was making noise back in the 70’s? No  matter. I continued to nod in agreement with a false smile. Lord Adam continued to wax “poetic” in his salty manner as he and Lute left the Foundry. 

“Why haven’t you or Lute replaced that…that…pompous little” and I whispered the last word “shit.” Lyre looked at me aghast, and passed a cursory eye around the foundry to ensure we were indeed alone. Her shocked demeanor dissipated, “Because pleasing him makes me rise farther in the Exorcist ranks and ensures our future.” she pointedly hissed at me. “Darling, we’re in Heaven, what else is there to ensure?” Lyre fell into what I called her “Hiding Face.” There were subjects even in our afterlife she was unwilling to discuss. But I sensed whatever was troubling her was from our time above the clouds. I tried to embrace her, but she pulled away and turned her back to me. “I’ll meet you outfront after your shift, dear.” She flapped her wings and rose, streaking out of the foundry. When she was gone and I was alone once again I felt a pang of a feeling I hadn’t felt since I was mortal. “Something…is wrong.”

[onswifterwings]

I have been tagged by @man--eater to share some work in progress, and save myself from the crippling grip of procrastination!

Here's a snippet of my big boy Herald's life in Heaven.

With every strike my forging hammer made a loud and pointed PANG! I had been folding the angelic steel in on itself over and over tapering the long teardrop globule to an angry looking point. My goggles clung to my eyes with a slight sticky sweat. My arms ached with a pleasant edge to the feeling. It was yet another commission for one of the Exorcist elites. My hammer rang out again and again. Pounding out the melody to the song that was my working day. Once a year the Exorcists flew out around the perimeter of heaven. Checking for weak spots and ensuring our Kingdom continued to be secure. Not in hundreds of millenia was a chink in Heaven’s armor ever found.Every year the Foundry would become flooded with requests for new and more elaborate blades, spears, and daggers which I was happy to construct. My time on earth was not much different than my time in heaven. Hard days, followed by quiet nights. The ebb and flow of the work song that made up my life, and afterlife. There was satisfaction in the day to day rigors of my employment. I oddly found it even more satisfying than my home life, which was quiet and simple. Lyre and I had built a life together in this realm and the earthly one. 

“Herald?” I put my hammer down and looked up to see my darling Lyre walk into my little corner of the foundry, flanked by another exorcist and her direct superior. A fastidious and no-nonsense woman named Lute. I snapped my goggles up on my forehead and went to Lyre, arms out for a hug. “Oh not just now dear, we’re here on business.” she said briskly, lightly patting at my wide and leather aproned chest. I dropped my arms sheepishly. Thank Heavens I was hot and sweaty already otherwise they would have seen me flush with embarrassment.

Lute stepped forward, all business and handed me a large folder. “These are some of the new design requests for our annual perimeter patrol. How quickly can you get them done?” I shuffled through some of them, all neatly designed on blueprint paper from the various Exorcist elites. Between two of the pages toward the middle I plucked out what looked like a hastily drawn doodle on a food stained napkin. There was chicken scratch writing all over it, most of which I could barely read. Did that say “Make it metal as FUK!”? It had what looked like a crude design for a battle ax that was also… “Is this a guitar?” I quizzically asked,  flipping the drawing to face my visitors. A loud and boisterous BELCH echoed through the halls of the foundry. “DAMN FUCKIN’ RIGHT IT IS!!!” Then around the corner of my workshop walked in Lord Adam, the First Man, carrying what looked like an entire tray of some kind of hors d'oeuvres.  “So!” Lord Adam barked through a mouthful of cheese and bread. “This the guy that’s build the BEST fuckin’ weapon Heaven’s ever seen?”

[onswifterwings]

A very VERY early look at my first few ideas for Herald. A fallen Angel in the employ of one Carmilla Carmine. Who is he? How did he fall from Grace! Working on it! More to come.